Outside Students Not Allowed This Year at Braintree High Homecoming

School Committee members voted unanimously this week to include in the Braintree High School handbook a rule that blocks any non-BHS students from attending the fall homecoming dance.

More than 1,000 teenagers regularly pack into the school's gymnasium for the dance, a difficult safety issue made worse, school officials say, by the number of attendees from outside BHS.


As part of the annual school handbook approval process, Headmaster James Lee asked the School Committee last month to approve a change that would block any non-BHS students from attending the fall dance. 

"That is a mob of humanity," Lee said during that previous meeting. "Should something happen in the middle of that floor, it would take an Act of Congress to get in there."

Committee members voted 7-0 Monday to approve the change. Mayor Joseph Sullivan said he still had "concern" about not allowing others students but would trust the administrators' judgement.

Lee said that the Homecoming policy must contain no exceptions, even for guests presented to school officials in advance or recent BHS graduates. The Prom, he said, is the proper venue for bringing in an outside guest.

The headmaster also said he did not wish to cap the number of Braintree High students attending the dance. Staff have a "greater element of control" over those students, he said.

Non-BHS students "don't have anything at stake if they are not a member of our school," Housemaster Nancy Moynihan said last month.

Braintree students who do not attend BHS may still go to the dance.